A cold indifference
by Wolfkins
Summary: Ryan isn't dead,anymore. She awoke in a grave not knowing how or why & needs to find something or someone. There's a past she can't remember but must find out to be able to find what she needs. Saved & taken in by a mysterious man named Creed, they must work together & like her the past won't stay buried. Will the truth be the death of Ryan? Inspired by the movie The Crow, Pls R&R


I vaguely recalled the upward struggle, the breaking through and emerging into the night, the first gasping breath, the cool breeze on my face. If felt far away though as if it had been a dream or like I had stepped outside of myself. I recalled little about where I was before that, voices and sounds, vague memories, a place very unlike where I'd emerged. The world was a butterfly, myself the empty cocoon. My feet were bare but I hadn't realized it until I'd reached the roadside where the gravel gnawed at my soles. My dress was odd, sort of open in the back from the shoulders down, allowing the frigid night air to speckle my posterior with goose bumps. I didn't take much time to dwell on it though, it was merely a small strangeness amongst many.

It was night, the hour unknown, nor did I know the day or date. The setting was unfamiliar, both the place I'd wandered from and the two-lane rural road I'd ended up on. It had sparse street lights and no traffic but I wasn't afraid. Where I'd come from had no light at all. I walked along for an endless time, knowing only that I couldn't remain where I was. I needed something and I was looking for someone but though I knew this, I didn't know what or who. The need was ingrained deep within me though, like the body craves food or water. That was why I was there. After a time I could see something in the distance, a lit up building, perhaps a gas station and walked towards it. I would have called it a beacon but it neither drew nor repelled me, like everything else it just was. Where else was I to go?

The gas station turned out to just be a small convenience store placed oddly in the middle of nowhere, just like me. Not that it really mattered because as I hesitated at the edge of the parking lot I didn't know what to do there. There was a pay phone attached to the outside wall of the store but as I stared at it from afar I couldn't think of who I would call. When I thought about family there was just an absence, a blank. And what sort of help would I ask for when I didn't even know what I needed? I stood there frozen in indecision, the wind listlessly blowing my disheveled curls. I knew where I'd come from but didn't know where I'd been before that and my destination was a mystery. How I'd come to be where I came from was also a mystery but unlike the others it didn't vex me, it merely was.

Eventually, when I was still no further from here or closer to there, out of the corner of my eye I saw a red truck pull into the lot, slowing down to gape at me on the way by. As I watched, two men jumped out of the vehicle and approached me. They walked slightly apart and slowly as if I were a creature that would spook and retreat. I couldn't place the feeling they gave me but it wasn't pleasant and it wasn't new. It was something in the way they walked, like there was intent behind it. I eyed them warily as they exchanged looks at the sight of me. Judging from their faces, I must have appeared as odd as I felt and yet they didn't turn tail, there was something that allured them but I couldn't recall just what that was or perhaps I'd never known.

"You ah, having a little trouble?" the first man asked hesitantly, hands out to prove he meant no harm.

I shrugged, carefully watching the second as he strolled around behind me, a predator circling prey.

"Look at her dress!" he called to his friend, pulling at the already parted fabric. "What happened to your dress baby?"

I shrugged again. It had just been that way.

The first man joined his friend in eyeing my arse and made an appreciative 'mmm'.

"Who cares about the dress? Look at her sweet ass little panties."

I swatted their hands away with no small degree of disgust and annoyance. They weren't who I needed.

"You ah need a ride somewhere mamacita?" asked the first, a small, spindly man.

"No."

The second man, larger and taller than his friend, strolled back around to look at me. I disliked his face.

"Come on now, we'll give you a lift to wherever you need to go mama."

"No, you're not who I'm looking for." I told him earnestly and began walking away. I had nowhere in particular to go but they were a waste of time.

"Where you going?" one of them asked plaintively, jogging after me.

The larger one caught my arm and spun me around to face them. I knew then what they wanted and that knowledge brought with it a fiery anger. The anger felt familiar, no not the anger...the situation and their intentions. I'd been there before and it felt deeply rooted but there was no memory attached to that feeling, just more vagueness.

"Don't touch me!" I growled, pulling away.

"We're just being friendly like." cooed the smaller, scrubby man as he advanced on me.

I protested loudly as he grabbed me, one arm gripping mine, the other around my waist. His accomplice jogged ahead to their truck and opened the passenger door as he dragged me toward it. Not again, came an unbidden and terrifying thought, this will send me back there. And then my protestations turned to shouts and screams. I wasn't going back there! I was lifted bodily, kicking and punching him as he threw me over his shoulder. Then there was a second pair of hands on me, taking my legs to quelch the assault on his friend.

Everything seemed to be happening at once, me shouting and struggling, the two working together to get my flailing body into the truck, someone yelling that they'd called the cops and then a tiny little click that halted it all in a heartbeat. The next thing I knew, I was on my ass on the cold, wet pavement. Above me the larger of the two men stood frozen, hands up, a gun to his chin. The owner of the gun was an equally large but far more mercenary looking man.

"I don't believe the lady wants to go with you." he growled, looking back and forth between them. For emphasis, he pressed the muzzle into the soft flesh beneath the mans quivering chin.

"Ok man, just be cool!" his friend interjected, holding his hands up to show that he was unarmed. "Just let him go and we're gone, you won't see us again."

My savior waved his free hand, indicating that I should go to him, so I did.

"Get in the truck," he hissed, prodding the chin with each word, "and get the fuck out of here." They nodded profusely, already moving to obey. "If I ever see you again, even if you're just walking your granny across the street, I'll blow your fucking heads off on account."

I couldn't help wondering if he actually would and found that I wasn't all that put off by the prospect. The gunman took my hand, pulling me away from the truck as they hopped in and peeled off leaving us alone with the smell of burnt rubber lingering in the air.

"I called the po-leece!"

He turned and gave the old woman in the shop door a bitter look, tucking the gun into his belt. With a sigh he turned back to look at me as if seeing me for the first time and I realized he likely hadn't seen much at all before intervening.

"Thank you." I breathed, looking up at his confused face.

That part of the ordeal felt unfamiliar and a strange thought, no a vague sense of knowing came over me.

He nodded firmly in reply and stripped off his shirt, offering it to me. I accepted it and put it on without question because clearly my dress was inadequate. It was warm and comforting and held the faint smell of aftershave.

"You wanna talk to the cops?" he asked, casting another disdainful glance at the store.

The old woman had disappeared by then and the neon open sign had gone dark. Did I want to talk to them, I wondered. No, I decided, feeling like they may do more harm than good. Police asked questions, many many questions. They would wonder where I came from and I would have to explain things that I didn't fully understand myself.

"No. They're not what I need."

Another nod.

"Let's go."

I followed the stranger to his car, a vintage, somewhat rusty, black Chevelle. The second my butt hit the seat he peeled out of his curbside spot and sped from the scene. I wondered if maybe he didn't want to talk to the police either.

"What's your name?" he asked, glancing into the rear view.

"Ryan."

That was one thing I knew with certainty.

"Ryan." he repeated, rolling it around in his head. "Creed."

I contemplated Creed for a moment, his shaven black hair, the black skull tattooed on his right hand and the plethora of others that adorned his pale skin and decided I didn't know what to make of him. He had saved me, no questions asked, but he definitely wasn't the ordinary hero type. Still, he felt safe.

"Where were you headed Ryan?"

"I don't know." I replied with a shrug and a blink.

Creed nodded though his brow was creased in confusion. He obviously didn't know what to make of me either and I couldn't blame him. I hardly knew what to make of myself.

"May I ask you a personal question?"

"Mmm hmm." I replied looking around listlessly. The tattoo on his muscled bicep caught my eye. The words appeared to be latin but it was only a guess, I probably didn't know latin.

"Why are you wearing that strange dress and covered in dirt? Just wondering…" he cleared his throat uncomfortably.

I looked down at myself, my dress, the dirt caked beneath my fingernails, wondering if I should tell Creed the truth. It wasn't too late for him to turn around and deliver me to the police.

"I had to dig."

Creed gave me a look out of the corner of his eye and shook his head as if trying to clear it.

"What do the words on your arm mean?"

"I asked first." he replied.

I assumed that given his looks most people would be intimidated by the way he almost growled all of his words. Even the most mundane sentence could sound like a threat. His voice was deep and husky naturally, I assumed, but I liked the blunt truthfulness it seemed to convey.

I was silent for a time wondering how to explain the oddities I half recalled. Where I came from was a place no one should walk out of.

"I can't make you tell me," Creed went on, "but I can dump you back where I found you. The cops are probably still there."

What if they put me back when they found out? No, they would probably take me to the hospital for tests and the doctors would know I wasn't real. Then they would put me back and I'd never find out who and what I was looking for.

"I crawled out of a hole!" I blurted at last, flailing my arms.

Creed sighed and pulled over, grinding the car to a halt and turning the wheel as if he intended to turn around.

"No, please it's true! Don't take me back there!" I desperately begged, squeezing his arm with both hands.

"Show me."


End file.
